The Alan Cheuse International Writers Center is hosting its second public BUSBOYS AND POETS LECTURE on April 23rd, 2024 at 6:30pm at the Stacy C. Sherwood Community Center, 3740 Blenheim Boulevard (formerly Old Lee Hwy), Fairfax, VA 22030.

For the second Cheuse Center's Busboys and Poets Lecture, we present Nikki Giovanni, whose friendship with James Baldwin formed the cornerstone of deeply personal public conversations. In this centennial year of James Baldwin’s birth, Baldwin’s friend, the award-winning writer and public intellectual, Nikki Giovanni, will reflect on her friendship with Baldwin, and why Baldwin matters. By touching on James Baldwin’s journey inside and outside America, Giovanni will discuss his legacy, include themes of belonging and exile, friendship, sexuality, community and interconnected idealism: black and white collaborators and their impact on internationalism and justice. How James Baldwin belongs to us all in profound interconnection. 

In 1971 James Baldwin and Nikki Giovanni taped a two-hour “dialogue” for a public TV show called Soul! At forty-seven years old, Baldwin was a legend for 'The Fire Next Time' and countless other essays, novels, and criticism. Giovanni, then twenty-eight, was a luminary of the Black Arts Movement as the author of the 1968 poetry collection 'Black Feeling, Black Talk.' Their conversation was subsequently published in book form as 'A Dialogue.'

Parking Map: On parking I don't know if you are familiar with the area but the Sherwood has three sets of overflow parking if the main lot is full, including in the church lot across the street. Here is the parking map: free public parking with overflow lots. 

Where: 3740 Blenheim Boulevard, Fairfax, VA 22030

Doors open: 6pm Lecture begins: 6:45pm

Book sales to follow. 

For more on Nikki Giovanni: https://nikki-giovanni.com

The Busboys and Poets Lecture is an annual lecture of ideas brought to you in collaboration with the founder of Busboys and Poets, Andy Shallal. 

Read more about our inaugural lecture here. 

In partnership with:

Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI), City of Fairfax, Fairfax County Public Library, Dept. of African and African American Studies at GMU

Join us for an Opening Reception on Friday, April 19 at 5pm at Mason Exhibitions Arlington (3601 Fairfax Drive, Arlington VA)

MFA Candidate Chen Bi is presenting Dreams / Shelter: Myth and Memory in a Cross-Cultural Journey from April 15-26, 2024.

Artist Statement:
Dream/Shelter: Myth and Memory in a Cross-Cultural Journey explores cultural displacement and identity evolution. Each piece is a blend of my personal memory and cultural heritage, inviting you on a journey through spaces that define and challenge the notion of home and belonging.

Weekday Hours:

Monday, April 15th - Friday, April 19th, 2-8pm

Monday, April 22nd - Friday, April 26th, 2-8pm

Weekend Hours:

Saturday, April 20, 1-7pm

Sunday, April 21 1-7pm

Saturday, April 27 1-7pm

Join us for the ‘James Baldwin Abroad’ series, including 3 rare films on Thursday, April 17, 1:30-4:30pm in the Johnson Center Room B.

The Johnson Center is building #30 on the campus map and the nearest paid visitor parking is in the Mason Pond Parking Deck.

Screening at 1:30pm:

James Baldwin: From Another Place
1973, 12 minutes

“Sedat Pakay was a Turkish photographer and filmmaker who specialized in portraits of artists, including Andy Warhol, Gordon Parks, Mark Rothko, and many others. Shot in Istanbul - where Baldwin lived off and on throughout the 1960s - James Baldwin: From Another Place finds the author in a reflective mood, discussing his work, sexuality, and complex feelings about the United States. Preserved by the Yale Film Archive with support from the National Film Preservation Foundation.”

Meeting the Man: James Baldwin in Paris
1970, 26 minutes

“Returning to Paris, where he first moved (or escaped to) in 1948, James Baldwin visits the Place de la Bastille in the company of white British filmmaker Terence Dixon to discuss the contradictory manner in which revolutions (French, Colonial, and Black American) are portrayed and considered. Sparring verbally with Dixon - to whom he could issue a knockout intellectual blow at any moment - Baldwin once again proves himself to be the great thinker of modern times. Picture and audio restoration by Mark Rance, Watchmaker Films, London.”

Screening at 3pm:

Baldwin's N*****
1968, 46 minutes

“In this riveting short documentary by pioneering Trinidadian-British filmmaker Horace Ové, James Baldwin and comedian-activist Dick Gregory speak to a group of radical West Indian students in London about everything from the state of the civil rights movement to the perils of false consciousness. The provocative title, drawn from Baldwin’s words, refers to one of the painful realities of Black American identity: that even his name conjures a history of slavery. Restoration courtesy of the British Film Institute.”

Note of thanks and acknowledgement:

These film resources are prepared by: Cindy Badilla-Melendez, GMU’s Music, Films Studies, and Media Librarian.

Initiative support and coordination: Anne Osterman, GMU Dean of Libraries and University Librarian.

This event was organized by the Cheuse International Writers Center and the Baldwin100 Host Committee.

Join us on Thursday, April 18 from 12-1:15pm for a Chinese Brush Painting Workshop led by Dongpei He. No experience is necessary, and all materials will be provided!

The workshop will be held in Buchanan Hall Atrium Gallery of Mason's Fairfax Campus. Paid visitor parking is available in Mason Pond Parking Deck. Campus Map here.

Roots and Reflections: Contemporary Chinese Artists in DC is a group exhibition of Chinese American artists who have been selected from members of The Chinese Culture and Art League of Washington DC. The artists were originally from Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong and now live and work in the Greater Washington Area. 

"LOOKING FOR JIMMY" with David Leeming  

A lecture & conversation: 1:30-2:45 pm, Center for the Arts, GMU, Fairfax, VA

Prof. Keith Clark will host David Leeming. David Leeming met James Baldwin in Istanbul in 1961. In 1994, Knopf published Leemings “James Baldwin: A Biography.” Leeming will give a 30-45 minute presentation followed by a conversation with Keith Clark. 

"WHY BALDWIN MATTERS" 

Panel Discussion: 3:00pm-4:30 pm, Center for the Arts, GMU, Fairfax, VA

Why Baldwin Matters - Friendship, Scholarship and Imagination - a panel led by Keith Clark - featuring Nicholas Delbanco, Deborah Tulani Salahu-Din, and Rae Mitchell.

Reception to follow in the same space.

The Center for the Arts is building #7 on the campus map. The nearest paid visitor parking is available in the Mason Pond Parking Deck.

Join us for a translation workshop in celebration of the exhibition Metamorphosis, led by poet and translator Heather Green (Asst. Prof., School of Art).

Participants will consider a poem, originally written by Sappho in ancient Greece, then translated into Latin, more than a thousand years later, by Catullus. After reading these poems and discussing their history of metamorphosis across languages and time, participants will create their own translations, whether speculative, visual, or through a contemporary literary lens.

LOCATION: Fenwick Library Main Reading Room (2001)

Registration is free but required. All supplies will be provided!

Join the Alan Cheuse International Writers Center and Mason Exhibitions for a Poetry Reading featuring Chilean writer Raúl Zurita and his translator Anna Deeny. 

Professor Vivek Narayanan will be moderating this event, set against the backdrop of the exhibition 'Faces & Figures: Identity Through Printmaking in South Africa'.

The Art and Design Building is building #3 on the campus map. Paid visitor parking is available at the Shenandoah Parking Deck.

Raúl Zurita’s Purgatory, a landmark in contemporary Latin American poetry, records the physical, cultural, and spiritual violence perpetrated against the Chilean people under Pinochet’s military dictatorship (1973–1990) in the fiercely inventive voice of a postmodern master. This beautiful en face edition, superbly translated by Anna Deeny, brings to English-language readers an indispensable volume written by one of the most important living poets writing in Spanish today. Zurita was a 24-year-old student in Valparaíso when, on the morning of the coup, he was arrested, detained, and tortured. Conceived as the first text of a Dantean trilogy that includes Anteparaíso (Anteparadise) and La Vida Nueva (The New Life), Purgatory is his anguished response to Chile’s violent recent history.

Join us on Tuesday, April 2, 5-7pm in Gillespie Gallery of the Art and Design Building for an opening reception for Faces and Figures: Identity Through Printmaking in South Africa, an exhibition curated by students taking the "Curating an Exhibition" course taught by Dr. LaNitra Berger.

Faces & Figures: Identity Through Printmaking in South Africa is a student-curated exhibition that explores artists’ expressions of identity in contemporary South Africa through the lens of printmaking. The artists are alumni and current students of the Artist Proof Studio (APS), a community printmaking center of excellence in Johannesburg, South Africa. Featuring over 100 prints by 40 artists from throughout southern Africa, the prints range in technique, style, and subject matter, drawing inspiration from South African popular culture and history as well as personal narratives. Embracing the spirit of self-awareness and innovation central to APS, these artists offer a glimpse into the complexities of personal and collective identity in Johannesburg.  

The Art and Design Building is building #3 on the campus map. Paid visitor parking is available at the Shenandoah Parking Deck.

Mason Exhibitions Arlington will host an interactive theater experience with Voices Unbarred. Voices Unbarred employs a tactic of Theater of the Oppressed, a revolutionary art form that helps people analyze the world around them, explore social and political issues, and create solutions, to examine issues surrounding incarceration. It employs games, dialogue, and interaction between audience and performer. These ideas will serve as a framework for the development and evolution of stronger ideas for us to all take to heart and action!

Voices Unbarred will deploy their curated interactive program, Rehearsal for Change, where you'll engage with thought-provoking activities and witness real stories from people with lived carceral experience. In the final activity of the event, you'll break out into small groups to collectively brainstorm new policy ideas that reimagine the prison system.

About Voices Unbarred: Voices Unbarred, the programming arm of Ally Theatre Company, centers the voices of people impacted by incarceration and collaborates with theatre practitioners and policy organizations to creatively reimagine the prison system and advocate for change. At the core of Voices Unbarred’s strategy is organizing people directly affected by incarceration and centering their ideas. Voices Unbarred Community Advocates use their lived experience and learned theatre techniques to advocate for themselves and the changes they want to see in the system. This includes changing current prison conditions, working towards the end of mass incarceration, exploring restorative justice and other approaches to healing harm, shifting disparaging narratives about people who have been impacted by incarceration, and exposing the systemic racism and intersectional systems that funnel a disproportionate amount of Black community members into jails and prisons.

Former Rehearsal for Change YouTube video

Questions about this event should be emailed to Alissa Maru (mailto:amaru@gmu.edu).

Thursday, March 28, 2024 @ 4:45 pm - 6:30 pm

MENDI + KEITH OBADIKE

Join us for a special screening of The Sun, followed by a Visual Voices lecture/Q&A with the filmmakers, Mendi + Keith Obadike.

Mendi + Keith Obadike are artists, composers, and writers. Their works sit at the intersection of art, music, and language and draw upon histories of experimental media art and performance. Their early collaborative works were pioneering pieces for the Internet. See their website, BlackSoundArt, here.

The Sun is a 42-minute music and film work. It is made up of voice, analog synth, harmonium, and bell plate. The piece uses pulsing images of light on film and Akhenaten’s Hymn to the Aten structural guide. Made during the summer of 2020 protests, the work is bookended by the Igbo proverb, "The sun will shine on those who stand before it shines on those who kneel under them.” It has been presented as a two-channel audio and quadraphonic audio.

This event will be held in Johnson Center Cinema on the GMU Fairfax campus, and via Zoom. RSVP is required for Zoom link.

The Johnson Center is building #30 on the campus map. The nearest paid visitor parking is available at the Mason Pond Parking Deck.

A note from the filmmakers: 

"In our practice we often think about how listening alters our sense of time. When listening, a repeating pulse can cause us to lose our grip on the passage of time. It can lull us, taking us out of time, or a sudden crash can awaken us to the moment. A musician may experience a moment differently because of how one divides time or pulses. 

"This time-work is most evident with drummers. The great drummer JT Lewis, who plays with us on The Sun, seems to be able to occupy multiple time domains at once. One of rhythm’s gifts is its ability to reorient us in relation to time and space. Listening also engages the index of our memories. One may be pulled into the past when listening to an old melody or one may be pushed into the future by new and inspiring sounds. That internal place where our favorite refrains live is the infinite timezone of the imagination.

"With The Sun, we wanted to make a musical film about the oldest metronome (the sun) and all that happens under this star. In this piece we are thinking about the sun as a pulse and a guide across time. During the screening, we invite you to meditate on the constancy of the sun."

This event is presented by Visual Voices; Mason Exhibitions, Visiting Filmmakers Series; College of Visual and Performing Arts; Film at Mason; GMU School of Art: and Inclusive Collaborative Arts at Mason (ICAM). 

Join us for a conversation with Jennifer Lillis, one of the artists featured in the Fenwick Gallery exhibition Metamorphosis!

• 11:00AM-1:00PM: Coffee and casual conversation in Fenwick Gallery

• 1:30PM-3:30PM: Paper Casting Workshop at Mason School of Art, Room 1009 (Printmaking & Book Arts Studio)

All snacks and materials are provided. Participants are also welcome to bring their own 3D object to cast (natural materials like wood and stone are recommended).

Registration is free but required. Sign up below!

Join us on Monday, March 25 from 10:30am-1:10pm in Buchanan Hall Atrium Gallery for a Chinese Brush Painting and Calligraphy Workshop led by artists Dongpei He and Kit-Keung Kan.

Paid visitor parking is available in Mason Pond Parking Deck. Campus Map here.

Both artists are in the exhibition Roots and Reflections: Contemporary Chinese Artists in DC in Buchanan Hall Atrium Gallery until April 19, 2024.

Join Mason Exhibitions and Sofar Sounds on Friday, March 22 from 8-10pm. You’ll see 2 or 3 short sets from incredible performers from all musical genres, and sometimes even spoken word, comedy or dance. Each show’s lineup is curated by our artist booking team to be diverse and varied. Grab your ticket and get ready to discover your new favorite artist!

Head over to Sofar Sounds’ YouTube channel to check out past shows and see some of today's biggest artists who played small, intimate Sofar shows along their journey!

More information about Sofar Sounds:

Sofar Sounds is a global music community that connects artists and audiences through live music. We bring people together to create space where music matters in 400 cities around the world.

Sofar Sounds Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/sofarsounds

This event is in conjunction with the Faces of Resilience currently on view at Mason Exhibitions Arlington.

Thursday, March 21, 2024 @ 4:45pm - 6:30 pm 
LATE COMEBACK PRESS

Late Comeback Press is a Northern Virginia micropress run by Rachna Soun and Caroline Kim, specializing in avant-garde zines. Communication and existentialism are the center of their art, flourishing in the space before choices are made, when the possibilities can seem paralyzingly endless or distinctively finite.

This event will be held via Zoom. RSVP is required to receive the Zoom link.

Please contact Jeffrey Kenney with questions/concerns (mailto:jkenney5@gmu.edu)

Drop in at the Johnson Center Gold Room (next to Dewberry Hall) anytime between 11am-3pm on Thursday, March 21 for free food and fun activities as you learn more about Patriot Packout (PPO), Mason's annual donation initiative that collects new, like-new, and gently used items during move-out.

Patriot Packout 2024 is scheduled from April 15 – May 10 and there are many ways to participate this semester and over the summer!

Contribute to a mixed media collage entitled “Solidarity Through Sustainability” with everyday/found materials in partnership with Mason Exhibitions. All materials will be provided. Students are encouraged to bring Mason-branded items, knickknacks, and random, small creative items.

The Drop-In Social event will feature the following activities:

1. Explore volunteer opportunities on campus

2. Learn about available resources to meet basic needs

3. Contribute to a mixed media collage - bring your own items OR make things during the event

4. Bring donations for Patriot Pantry (dry goods, toiletries)

5. Enjoy vegan, vegetarian, and Halal food from local community kitchen, Anna Sudha

6. Enjoy Thai Tea and Vietnamese Coffee

Join us on Monday, March 18, 5-7pm for an Artist Reception in Buchanan Hall Atrium Gallery of Mason's Fairfax Campus. Paid visitor parking is available in Mason Pond Parking Deck. Campus Map here.

Artists Dongpei He and Kit-Keung Kan will offer Chinese Brush Painting and Calligraphy Demonstrations during the reception, and light food/beverages will be served.

Roots and Reflections: Contemporary Chinese Artists in DC is a group exhibition of Chinese American artists who have been selected from members of The Chinese Culture and Art League of Washington DC. The artists were originally from Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong and now live and work in the Greater Washington Area. 

Join us on Friday, March 15, 7-9pm at Mason Exhibitions Arlington to witness and participate in The Innocents & Disappearance Jail Punch Party with Maria Gaspar.

The Innocents provide a dramatic soundscape which endeavor to explore various aspects of the issues surrounding wrongful imprisonment and exoneration in the American criminal justice system. Enveloping the soundscape will be a commissioned sonic sculpture of decommissioned jail bars of Maria Gaspar, exploring how these artifacts  transfigure what were once materials of confinement into new experiences of liberation.

Additionally Gaspar will lead a ‘punch party’ where Gaspar aims to abol­ish carceral spaces by incorporating prints of current Virginia carceral spaces into the Disappearance Jails project. These prints will be obscured through perforations by exhibition visitors.

Maria Gaspar is an interdisciplinary artist whose work addresses issues of spatial justice in order to amplify, mobilize, or divert structures of power through individual and collective gestures. In collaboration with George Mason University’s data mapping and art history scholars, Gaspar will continue to realize her goals of abolishing carceral spaces by adding prints of current prisons, jails, and immigrant detention facilities in Virginia to the Disappearance Jails project, which will ultimately be obscured through perforations by exhibition visitors.

The Innocents is a social justice advocacy performance art piece by musicians and composers Allen Otte and John Lane. Using a variety of found-object and home-made instruments, electronic soundscapes, and spoken texts, the one-hour dramatic soundscape will explore various aspects of the issues surrounding the American criminal justice system.

John Lane is an artist whose creative work and collaborations extend through percussion to poetry/ spoken word and theater. As a performer, he has appeared on stages throughout the Americas, Australia, and Japan. As an advocate of social justice he co-created with Allen Otte The Innocents which the duo has performed throughout the US, including appearances at the Innocence Network Conference, Woody Guthrie Center, and Atlanta’s Center for Civil and Human Rights. He has recorded two albums: The Landscape Scrolls (Starkland Records, 2018), TRIGGER: Artists Respond to Gun Violence (Albany Records, 2021). John is the Professor of Percussion at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. www.john-lane.com

Allen Otte was a cofounder of the Blackearth Percussion Group and of Percussion Group Cincinnati, and toured for decades throughout the world performing new and experimental music created for him and his colleagues. Otte regularly presents his own creative work, often in residencies centered around the theme of performing social justice, and is the regular percussionist with the early music quartet Trobar Medieval. He is professor Emeritus, University of Cincinnati, and in 2017 was inducted into the International Percussive Arts Society Hall of Fame.

Program Note: This approximately one hour dramatic soundscape is comprised of seventeen individual tableaus which endeavor to explore various aspects of the issues surrounding wrongful imprisonment and exoneration in the American criminal justice system: mistaken identity, incarceration, psychology, politics, injustice, and resilience. Though we do this from our admittedly privileged perspective, we have available not only the information – both factual and testimonial – but, significantly, we have resources of a time and sound-based art. In performance we have the opportunity to direct and focus not only attention, but more importantly, to engage on an emotional level where experience is more than simply processing facts and figures.

Questions should be emailed to Alissa Maru at amaru@gmu.edu

Celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of noted scholar and author James Baldwin

Author and activist James Baldwin would have turned 100 years old in 2024. In numerous essays, novels, plays and public speeches, the eloquent voice of James Baldwin spoke of the pain and struggle of Black Americans and the saving power of brotherhood. Join the Library in reading one of Baldwin's best-known works during the month of February - "The Fire Next Time." The Library will have unlimited eAudiobook copies of this work available, along with a few others of Baldwin's works, from January through March. 

On Thursday, February 29, join the Library for a community discussion of this pivotal work with George Mason University Distinguished Professor Keith Clark. Then, join us for our Arlington Reads spring series for continued discussions, featuring four acclaimed authors, of Baldwin and his continued relevance in today's society.

For more information, contact LibraryPrograms@arlingtonva.us

This event supports the Baldwin100 Initiative and Arlington Library's recognition of Black History Month. 

TIME CHANGED!

Join us on Monday, February 26, 1:30-4:10pm at Gillespie Gallery of the Art and Design Building for a Disability Justice Zine-Making Workshop led by artist and advocate Jen White-Johnson.

All materials will be provided, and no experience is necessary!

Questions should be directed to Yassmin Salem (mailto: ysalem@gmu.edu)

Jen White Johnson is a disabled and Neurodivergent Afro-Latina art activist and design educator whose visual work aims to uplift disability justice narratives in design. As an artist-educator with Graves disease and ADHD, Jen uses photography, zines, and collage art to explore the intersection of content and caregiving, emphasizing redesigning ableist visual culture.

Artist Website: https://jenwhitejohnson.com/

To enhance the engagement with the content of mass incarceration within Faces of Resilience, Mason Exhibitions is hosting a film screening of Since I Been Down, a film by Gilda Shepard. Gilda and Kimonti have prepared a special message just for the Mason Exhibitions audience!

Meet Kimonti Carter : Former president and current member of an over 40-year Washington State prisoner-initiated program, the Black Prisoners’ Caucus. At 34, Kimonti founded TEACH (Taking Education and Creating History), a remarkably innovative prisoner education program

Kimonti and a group of his peers maneuver through a non-negotiable pathway to joining gangs as early as 11-years-old. This is a community profoundly impacted by the city's disinvestment in housing, education, and employment as well as our policies in the 1990's

The film, told by the people who have lived these conditions, unravels intimate stories from interviews brought to life through archival footage, cinema verité discussions, masquerade, and dance , unravelling why children commit violent crime and how these children – now adults – are breaking free from their fate by creating a model of justice that is transforming their lives, our humanity and a quality of life for all our children.

Light refreshments will be served

Questions should be emailed to Alissa Maru at amaru@gmu.edu

Thursday, February 22, 2024 @ 4:45 pm - 6:30 pm 
MARIA GASPAR

Maria Gaspar is an interdisciplinary artist negotiating the politics of location through installation, sculpture, sound, and performance. Gaspar’s work addresses issues of spatial justice in order to amplify, mobilize, or divert structures of power through individual and collective gestures. In collaboration with George Mason University’s data mapping and art history scholars, Gaspar will continue to realize her goals of abolishing carceral spaces by adding  prints of current prisons, jails, and immigrant detention facilities in Virginia to the Disappearance Jails project, which will ultimately be obscured through perforations by exhibition visitors.

This event will be held via Zoom. RSVP is required for Zoom link.

Contact Jeffrey Kenney with questions/concerns (mailto:jkenney5@gmu.edu)

Join us on Friday, February 16, 2024, 7-9pm for an Incarcerated Salon curated by artist Carlos Walker, who will kick off the night with a Political Rap Battle performance.

There will be a variety of musical performances, spoken word poetry, and other creative presentations. The microphone will be open to any audience members who would like to perform!

Faces of Resilience features works by 14 previously or currently incarcerated artists who participate in year-round art workshops at SCI Phoenix, Southeast Pennsylvania’s maximum-security prison for men located 33 miles outside of Philadelphia. The exhibit is supplemented by the works of three professional artists: Maria Gaspar, Sara Bennett, and the late Winfred Rembert (1945–2021).

Questions about the event should be directed to Alissa Maru at amaru@gmu.edu

Thursday, February 8, 2024 @4:45pm - 6:30pm 
TAEKYEOM LEE

Taekyeom Lee is an educator, maker, and designer whose research explores unconventional materials and digital methods to graphic design, to create 3D type, graphics, and even designed objects. This research began with two questions: Where does typography belong in the post-digital age? How do we bridge digital and physical experiences?

This event will be held in Center for the Arts Lobby, on the GMU Fairfax campus, and via Zoom. RSVP is required for Zoom link.

The Center for the Arts is building #7 on the campus map. The nearest paid visitor parking is available at the Mason Pond Parking Deck.

Join us for a celebration of the exhibit "Flow of Tradition: Chinese Folk Art in the Lunar New Year" in Fenwick Gallery!

Hosted by Drs. Lijun Zhang (Asst. Professor, Department of English) and Hongmei Sun (Assoc. Professor, Modern and Classical Languages), this event will feature a short presentation from the exhibit's curators, Drs. Lili Zhu and Tao Pang, followed by a light reception, tea ceremony, and crafts and activities.

This event is co-sponsored with Fenwick Gallery and Mason Libraries, the Department of English, the Folklore Program, Folklore Roundtable, and the Department of Modern and Classical Languages.

Full schedule and activities TBA.

Registration free but recommended.

Join us for a Tactile Design Workshop led by Taekyeom Lee in Gillespie Gallery of the Art and Design Building of GMU’s Fairfax Campus on Thursday, February 8, from 11am-1pm.

No experience is required, but you must bring a laptop to work with the 3D software. The software (https://www.tinkercad.com) will run on the web browser. Participants do not need to install anything.

Samples will be provided for inspiration.

Taekyeom Lee is one of 12 artists in Disrupt and Resist. In the exhibition, he presents several 3D printed embossers that visitors can use to print the English alphabet in Braille.

Taekyeom Lee is a multidisciplinary designer, educator, and maker. His research explores unconventional materials and alternative solutions to create tangible typography, graphics, and even designed objects using digital fabrication. He infused 3D printing into his research and has been experimenting with various methods and materials for tactile experiences. His latest project aims to make graphic design more accessible with tactility and materiality.

Art is activism and portraiture is powerful! On January 28, from 1 p.m. – 4 p.m., join us at the National Portrait Gallery for A Day of Action.

Geared toward mobilizing teens and young adults but open to all, this event featuring local social justice partner organizations and community groups will empower visitors to become engaged citizens. Visitors will learn from change-makers and be inspired by the activists highlighted in the Portrait Gallery’s exhibitions “The Struggle for Justice” and “Forces of Nature: Voices that Shaped Environmentalism.”

Visit our table (and many others) and participate in a Zine-Making Workshop led by Jen White-Johnson, one of the artists in Disrupt and Resist in Gillespie Gallery.

Bring your friends as we honor Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. by participating in community!

📍 Kogod Courtyard at the National Portrait Gallery (G and 8th Streets NW)

📆 January 28 from 1 p.m. – 4 p.m.

For the second Cheuse Center's Busboys and Poets Lecture, we present Nikki Giovanni, whose friendship with James Baldwin formed the cornerstone of deeply personal public conversations. In this centennial year of James Baldwin’s birth, Baldwin’s friend, the award-winning writer and pubic intellectual, Nikki Giovanni, will reflect on her friendship with Baldwin, and why Baldwin matters. By touching on James Baldwin’s journey inside and outside America, Giovanni will discuss his legacy, include themes of belonging and exile, friendship, sexuality, community and interconnected idealism: black and white collaborators and their impact on internationalism and justice. How James Baldwin belongs to us all in profound interconnection. 

In 1971 James Baldwin and Nikki Giovanni taped a two-hour “dialogue” for a public TV show called Soul! At forty-seven years old, Baldwin was a legend for 'The Fire Next Time' and countless other essays, novels, and criticism. Giovanni, then twenty-eight, was a luminary of the Black Arts Movement as the author of the 1968 poetry collection 'Black Feeling, Black Talk.' Their conversation was subsequently published in book form as 'A Dialogue.'

For more on Nikki Giovanni: https://nikki-giovanni.com

The Busboys and Poets Lecture is an annual lecture of ideas brought to you in collaboration with the founder of Busboys and Poets, Andy Shallal. 

Read more about our inaugural lecture here. 

Join us on Wednesday, January 17, 2024 for a Virtual Artist Talk with some of the many artists in the Faces of Resilience exhibition, including Sara Bennett, Ronald Connelly, and Luis 'Suave' Gonzalez.

Faces of Resilience features works by 14 previously or currently incarcerated artists who participate in year-round art workshops at SCI Phoenix, Southeast Pennsylvania’s maximum-security prison for men located 33 miles outside of Philadelphia. The exhibit is supplemented by the works of three professional artists: Maria Gaspar, Sara Bennett, and the late Winfred Rembert (1945–2021).

Questions about the event should be directed to Alissa Maru at amaru@gmu.edu

Join Mason Exhibitions and artist Brian Davis on Friday, December 8 for the closing reception of "Reconciliation (Disco)" at Mason Exhibitions Arlington. Come and be part of an immersive sound installation with a special performance.

Date and time : Friday, December 8th, 2023, from 5:00 to 8:00 PM

Location: Mason Exhibitions Arlington 3601 Fairfax Dr, Arlington, VA 22201

This event is free and open to the public.

What’s life like after art school? Join us for a conversation and live comics reading with three Mason alumni: Lee Strawberry (BFA '19), Ash Smith (BA '22), and Sylvia Rossi (BFA '23)! Attendees will learn a little more about being working cartoonists, and how these creators keep their practice going.

Following the discussion, Sylvia Rossi will lead a comics workshop and Risograph printing demonstration from 12-1:30PM.

Registration recommended, no experience needed. Snacks and supplies will be provided.

This event is sponsored by Mason Libraries, Mason Exhibitions, and University Life.

 ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Lee Strawberry (BFA New Media, 2019) is a Virginia-based artist who uses artwork as a diary to record memories and emotions. View more of Lee's work at leestrawberry.com or @commandurr14 on Instagram.

Ash Smith (BA Drawing, 2022) is an illustrator and comics artist based in Virginia, mixing magic with the mundane. See more of Ash's work at amasmith26.wixsite.com/octopars or on Instagram @octopars.

Sylvia Rossi (BFA Printmaking, 2023) is a DC-based cartoonist/comic artist and printmaker. Find Sylvia's work on Instagram @veronikaspoons.